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Obama Honors Victims of Bin Laden at Ground Zero

President Obama was joined Thursday by first responders on 9/11 on his visit to ground zero to pay tribute to victims of that day's terrorist attacks.Credit
Todd Heisler/The New York Times

President Obama laid a wreath of red, white and blue flowers at ground zero on Thursday, honoring the nearly 3,000 people killed in the September 2001 terrorist attacks and marking the death of the perpetrator, Osama bin Laden.

The hushed ceremony, on a sunny, breezy day, was a somber coda to a triumphal week that began with Mr. Obama’s announcement Sunday night that American commandos had killed Bin Laden in his fortified compound in Pakistan.

Unlike so many other memorials held in this place, Thursday’s was not just to mourn those who died but to celebrate that, at last, a measure of justice had been done.

In a four-hour visit that included stops across Manhattan, the president held one-to-one meetings with people whose lives had been wrenched apart by Bin Laden: relatives of the victims, as well as firefighters, police officers, and other rescue workers who lost comrades that morning nearly a decade ago.

“Obviously, you can’t bring back your friends that were lost,” Mr. Obama said to the crew at a firehouse in Midtown that lost 15 men, an entire shift, at the World Trade Center.

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President Obama, with former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, met with members of Engine 54, Ladder 4 and Battalion 9 at their firehouse on West 48th Street in Midtown Manhattan.Credit
Doug Mills/The New York Times

“What happened Sunday, because of the courage of our military and the outstanding work of our intelligence, sent a message,” he declared. “When we say we will never forget, we mean what we say.”

The visit was Mr. Obama’s first as president to the patch of lower Manhattan that the attacks turned into hallowed ground. And the president was clearly eager throughout the day to remind the American public of the deeply personal reasons he ordered a risky, violent military operation half a world away.

“A lot of you have probably comforted loved ones of those who were lost; a lot of you have probably looked after kids who grew up without a parent,” Mr. Obama said to police officers at the First Precinct station house. “What we did on Sunday was directly connected to what you do every single day.”

Administration officials played down Mr. Obama’s absence from ground zero since he entered the White House. He visited in 2008 as a presidential candidate and plans to return this September for the 10th anniversary of the attacks, they said.

In 2009 and 2010, he went to the memorial for those killed at the Pentagon.

Nobody at ground zero seemed to begrudge the president his decision to visit now, even the construction workers who had been expelled from the site so security teams could sweep it before his appearance.

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A tourist took a photograph of the World Trade Center site before President Obama's visit on Thursday.Credit
Daniel Barry for The New York Times

“Bin Laden’s death, that’s a long time coming,” said one of the workers, Eric Bellaby, 31, of Rockland County. “It’s something we all wanted for a long time. So it’s a feeling of relief now that he’s gone.”

Two hours before Mr. Obama’s arrival, hundreds of onlookers had already gathered south of the site, at the intersection of Greenwich and Liberty Streets. As the crowds waited to pass through tight security, a woman peddled $2 American flags and buttons that said “Mission Accomplished.”

Mr. Obama placed the wreath at the foot of a tree, known as the Survivor Tree, that had been wrested from the rubble, nursed back to health, and replanted as a memorial.

Then he stood silently, his head bowed and his hands clasped before him. Behind him loomed one of the cranes that are rebuilding the site, briefly stilled.

Uniformed rescue workers stood in an honor guard, alongside relatives of the victims.

Mr. Obama sought out a 14-year-old girl at the memorial, Payton Wall, who had recently written him a letter about the loss of her father, Glen James Wall, in the attack. He also met privately with 60 other relatives of the victims.

Video

TimesCast | Obama Visits Ground Zero

President Obama honored 9/11 victims on a visit to Ground Zero after the death of Osama bin Laden.

“It means, like, the world to me,” Christopher Cannizzaro said of meeting the president after the ceremony. The boy, who was 10 months old when his father, Brian Cannizzaro, a firefighter from Brooklyn, was killed, gave Mr. Obama a fist-bump and a prayer card with his father’s picture.

His mother, Jackie Cannizzaro-Harkins, said, “It gave us a sense of closure.”

Earlier, at Engine Company 54 on West 48th Street, the first stop of the day, Mr. Obama joined the firefighters for a lunch of eggplant parmigiana; salad; and pasta with scallops, shrimp, and sun-dried tomatoes in a cream sauce. “We sat together as gentlemen around the table, celebrating getting justice,” said one firefighter, Leonard Sieli.

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The atmosphere was festive — “He ate a lot,” Firefighter Sieli said — though Mr. Obama told them about the tense moments in the White House situation room on Sunday as he and his senior aides watched the raid unfold in Pakistan. Mr. Obama also paused to look at a bronze plaque honoring the station’s fallen firefighters.

Inside the firehouse, there is a wall of photographs, and tucked behind one of them, which depicts Michael F. Lynch, is a faded child’s scrapbook with the title, “Superdad.”

Mr. Obama had invited former President George W. Bush to join him at ground zero, but Mr. Bush declined. A spokesman said Mr. Bush appreciated the invitation but wanted to stick to his policy of staying out of the public spotlight.

Video

TimesCast | A Photographer's Journal

May 5, 2011 - Times photographer Doug Mills travels with Barack Obama to ground zero and reflects on his last trip there in 2001 with President Bush.

The White House was quick to say it took no offense at Mr. Bush’s decision not to attend, saying that he had been invited in the spirit of national unity that Mr. Obama said he hoped would prevail in the wake of Bin Laden’s killing.

But Mr. Obama appeared to take comfort from the presence of another prominent Republican who loomed large on Sept. 11, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.

Praising Mr. Giuliani, the president said, “It’s a testimony that we may have our differences politically, in ordinary times, but when it comes to keeping this country safe, we are first and foremost, Americans.”

Aside from these remarks, Mr. Obama did not deliver a speech, a decision White House officials said was made to avoid creating any appearance of exploiting the families of the victims for political gain.

Shortly after the ceremony in New York, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. laid a wreath of lilies and carnations, interspersed with red-white-and-blue ribbons, near the blackened stone base of the Pentagon, marking the spot where one of the hijacked airplanes was crashed into the building.

On Friday, he and Mr. Obama will both go to Fort Campbell, Ky., for a less somber occasion: to pay tribute to troops recently returned from Afghanistan, as well as those who flew the Navy Seal team to Bin Laden’s compound inside Pakistan.

The Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, which provided air transportation for the Navy assault team, is based at Fort Campbell, as is the 101st Airborne Division, much of which is still deployed in Afghanistan.

Manny Fernandez contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on May 6, 2011, on Page A13 of the New York edition with the headline: President, at Ground Zero, Pays Tribute to Victims of Bin Laden. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe